Friday, November 09, 2012

Ephesians 3:17-19


17 May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

Jesus will never leave us or forsake us, so His home is permanently with us, Hebrews 13:5. We are where Jesus gets His glory, John 17:10. When I was growing up, the church that I attended had a pastor who would always tell us that God will not bless us past our last act of disobedience. That is flat out wrong! The Truth is that our righteousness is as filthy rags. The Truth is where sin abounds our Father’s grace much more abounds, Romans 5:20. Every one of us has been made to be disobedient, but that is all right, because our Father will have mercy on all of us alike. Our Father did this so that we would never have to rely on ourselves. 

For God has consigned (penned up) all men to disobedience, only that He may have mercy on them all [alike]. Romans 11:32

18 That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];
    
19 [That you may really come] to know [practically, [through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses [mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and [become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to pray this prayer because it is the will of our Father that we have it all. There is only one law and it is love, Galatians 5:14, and we now have all of Jesus’ love, John 17:26. We now have the complete breadth, length, and depth of our Father’s love! Our Father’s plan is to fill us with all of His fulness so that on this earth we may be just like Jesus is. Our Father wants us to experience His fulness and be filled with all of Himself just as Jesus is filled with all of Him. In Christ we have the richest measure of our Father’s fulness and our Father is Love, 1 John 4:8. We are wholly filled with God Himself and through the power of the Holy Spirit we are able to actually dare to think of being used as Jesus is used. We are empowered to grasp the Truth and be used fully in it, from the least of us, to the greatest of us. In Christ our Father is able to use us without limits. Today is the day for this and now is our appointed time. We are the glorious church without spot, wrinkle, or blemish.

So don’t fret about where you mess up, Jesus is our refiners fire and He is our fullers soap. Our Father will prune out of us what He needs to prune out John 15. It is always our Father’s strength that allows us to do His will and even if we mess up, it really isn’t a mess up, because it will work out for our good, Romans 8:28! We are always blessed in the power of our Father’s might, Colossians 1:11. We are always more then conquerors through Christ Who strengthens us, Romans 8:37. And amen, Jesus is always greater in us, then anything that is in this world, 1 John 4:4.    

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